


Doing The Job

by BleedingHeartCrow



Category: Beat the Champ - The Mountain Goats (Album)
Genre: Gen, Wrestling, lycanthropy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 22:19:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5515385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingHeartCrow/pseuds/BleedingHeartCrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When your werewolf gimmick isn't really a gimmick, it's hard to lose under a full moon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doing The Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Healy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Healy/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! It was impossible to resist throwing the cast of this album together for a little (figurative) battle royale, even if Werewolf Gimmick is the star of the show. I apologize in advance for my terrible, terrible wrestler names.

Bloodwolf drives through the twilight, radio off, alone with his thoughts. On most nights, the waxing gibbous moon above would feel like a welcome promise, but this month it feels more like a threat. _Full moon tomorrow,_ it whispers through the clear near-night sky. _Full moon tomorrow for the match._

This match. This goddamn tag-team match. It's probably his own damn fault for thinking a tag-team angle would be fun, let alone getting into one with Maniac Max, a guy without an ounce of professional pride. The Blood Maniacs lose and lose and lose, and it's usually Max's idea. Sure, it's easier to take than solo losses -- everyone knows he's shackled to a chump -- but it's still losing, and sometimes it seems like they only win to make their next loss look a little more interesting. Most days, he just swallows his bile and collects the paycheck. It's the job, and most days, he can do the job.

Tomorrow isn't most days. Tomorrow is the first day of a full moon.

It's not like the bookers know, admittedly. Maybe two guys on the circuit know, and even if Max is one of them, this booking wasn't his fault. They've been on the phone for weeks now, on and off, cursing and trying to work out choreography even though they both know this'll have to be improv. The Blood Maniacs are losing to kids this time, an up-and-coming pair of masked babyfaces and hometown boys, which means this has to be clean. The full moon doesn't let Bloodwolf do clean. How the fuck does he do that?

He's going through all the cheats and gimmicks he knows as he pulls into town. By the look of the diners and motels on the highway coming in, this is a nice, clean mid-sized town, the kind of place that draws good crowds and big families. Lots of kids, probably. He's going to need to sleep on this and hope a miracle comes to him. At least they've got the first slot, the curtain-jerker. This time of the year, it might not be full nightfall by the time they're in the ring.

Bloodwolf finds a decent-looking local joint to stop at, a place with an attached diner and a few open parking places. He hits the diner, shovels a plate of steak and eggs into his mouth, and heads to the lobby to rent a room -- single queen bed, nothing fancy. All he needs it for is sleep, or something like it, and he's in bed within ten minutes of setting his suitcase down in the closet.

Sleep takes hours to come.

* * *

Bloodwolf was eleven the first time he changed. He wasn't Bloodwolf then, of course; he was Gary Lee Barnes, a scrawny, white-blond fifth-grader who spent most of his recesses in the library. Gary Lee Barnes was nobody's first choice for sports, nobody's best friend, neither a teacher's pet nor a class clown. Whenever he looks at old photos from those days, Bloodwolf can only think that Gary looks like a kid on a milk carton, the kind of kid who lets go of his mom's hand at the mall and disappears into nothing. 

In a way, Gary Lee Barnes did disappear. He has only fragmentary memories of his first change -- fist smashing against the safety glass of his window (why safety glass?), claws scraping down desperately, screams turning into howls -- but even in his imprisonment, it was something more than life had offered him so far. The next morning, when he came down to breakfast, his aunt gave him a knowing smile and a plate of rare steak. "We always thought you might carry the curse," his uncle said, kindly enough. "You're so much like your mother."

He always tried to be good. He accepted his prison-bedroom, with its safety glass and its steel-reinforced door, but he paced all night, longing for something, _anything_ to do. He didn't want to hurt people, but the wolf needed the hunt... and there were ways to satisfy it without _really_ hurting people, after all. Wrestling was the first stupid idea that came to mind, and somehow, it worked. Years of training turned Gary from scrawny to wiry, and a night or two a month, the wolf got to come out to play.

Bloodwolf is good at what he does. He's rough on change-nights, but nobody's been in real trouble yet, so who cares? As he lies awake, though, the night before the match, he thinks this is going to be a bad one. The wolf wants real blood in its mouth this month, and he's not up against Max or Dominic Dreamer or one of the veteran workers who can handle it. The kids are, what, nineteen and twenty? 

Maybe he won't manage to lose. Almost certainly, he won't make it look good. If he can keep from killing them, though, that might be enough.

* * *

Bloodwolf shows up in the locker room early. A few of the usual smartasses make their jokes -- "what, you gotta glue all your fur on?" -- but the veterans in the back just nod. They know that an early locker-room showing means he's controlled and serious tonight. 

The kids are early, too, and all kitted up. They're both still doing the animal-mask thing: one in a frog mask, for some reason, and the other in a slightly more respectable-looking full-head lion piece. Their ring names are some Spanish he doesn't remember, but their out-of-ring names are... Hernando in the frog mask, Francisco in the lion? Bloodwolf can't remember what Max and the booker told him. Hopefully he won't have to be polite.

Bloodwolf changes quickly. His ring gear is practically street gear: jeans, boots, and long-sleeved flannel, loose enough to stay intact when he changes and hide the worst of it. The wolf mask and gloves goes last, cheap rubber jobs that look cheesy but conform to his face and hands when he's in full change. It's the kind of look nobody but him could pull off, and that's why he favors it. Tonight, especially, he's going to need full cover.

He's talking things over with Max, a half-hour before the match, when he starts to feel the first sensations of the change. There's a little pain, the natural result of his muscles and bones shifting their positions and nails pushing out into the padded openings in his gloves, but above all else, the change always feels like power. Max, in full bloody-madman makeup, grimaces. "Shit. Already, man?"

"I felt it last night," Bloodwolf says, voice a touch deeper already. "This is a powerful month. Don't tag me in if you don't have to."

"I'll try, but... shit. We really should have coordinated this."

"No time now. Just lose nice and easy for me, okay? Don't make me do it."

"Okay," says Max, but Bloodwolf knows it's a crapshoot. With Max, king of the crazy angles, it always is.

* * *

In the end, it's not Max who fucks up that particular plan. It turns out standing at the sidelines is even worse for the wolf than losing a fight; in a normal match, when tags are flying and they're both in and out constantly, it's never been a thing, but watching Max work sends shivers up Bloodwolf's spine. Eventually, Max has to try and throw a tag for narrative's sake, and Bloodwolf takes it greedily, snarling as he leaps into the ring. The lion kid's in when he goes, and he's a high-flyer, but Bloodwolf grabs him off the leap and gets him into a lock. He scrambles, flails, and the motion kicks the wolf into overdrive before Bloodwolf remembers he can't choke the kid out. He lets go, lets the kid fling him back into the ropes, and is back on the attack when the kid's partner takes the tag.

The frog kid is faster, harder to catch, which is all for the best. Bloodwolf is just barely able to force himself to stay slow and easily read, even if the wolf inside cries out for him to rip off his mask, his gloves, the kid's mask, _all_ masks, every impediment -- and he's got the kid on the ropes now, clawing at the mask with blessedly padded gloves. Shit. He needs to kill this momentum and turn things back around properly before he does something stupid --

And the kid's in the air, grabbing him by the hips and flipping him over onto the mat. A sunset flip? It's stupid, but... he's down, and Bloodwolf forces himself to stay down. The wolf inside him writhes like a mad thing, but for once, Gary Lee Barnes raises his mental voice and puts it in its place. It almost feels good when the ref finishes the count and calls the match.

On the way out of the building, Bloodwolf skips the locker room and stalks out to his car. He doesn't like to drive on change nights, but Gary is enough in control that he gets back to the hotel to strip off his mask and gloves. Bloodwolf tucks his wallet and keys into the hidden inner pocket of his jeans, then steps out into the parking lot, heading towards the high desert beyond. If he can't let the wolf hunt, he can at least let it run.

* * *

Bloodwolf wakes up in the dust, blessedly unbloodied, and stands up to get his bearings. He can see the hotel in the distance, and it's only a twenty-minute trudge to return to his room. He washes quickly and changes clothes, not bothering with a full shower; the wolf didn't feed last night, thank God, but now he's ravenous.

Maniac Max and Dominic Dreamer are in a booth at the diner, and they gesture for Bloodwolf to join them. "Hey, Gary," says Dom. Bloodwolf pushes himself to remember Dom's out-of-ring name -- Joe? Jake? "Good work with Hernando last night. Really pulled it off."

"Yeah," says Max -- Danny, Bloodwolf corrects himself. He has to try and use out-of-rings sometimes. He's pretty sure Dom's actually a Joe, now. "I really thought we were fucked, but you sold the hell out of that flip."

"Thanks." Bloodwolf -- Gary -- sits down and glances over the menu, more for show than anything. It's going to be steak and eggs again, maybe even rare. Get some coffee in him for the road, too. "... Hard show."

"You're telling me," says Danny. "Six months ago, you wouldn't have pulled it off. You're gonna be a decent worker yet. You know how to take a chokehold?" Joe shoots him a look that even Gary can read: _for the love of Christ, Danny, don't get into the fucking masochist-worker schtick._ But who knows? Maybe it'd be nice to learn to sell a little harder. Maybe Gary can start putting in more of the work than the wolf out there.

Sometimes, anyway. However many times the Blood Maniacs job, Bloodwolf will never die easy.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks go out to C. and T. for their help with the wrestling choreography. I hope this was adequately wrestle-y without going overboard -- sports fandom stuff can be a hard line to walk!


End file.
